It is often said that the monasteries were the great supporters of
the poor, and fed them in times of scarcity. It may be so, but I
should like to see the evidence for the statement. At present I doubt
the fact, at any rate as far as Norfolk goes. [Footnote: The returns
of the number of poor people supported by the monasteries, which are
to be found in the "Valor Ecclesiasticus," are somewhat startling.
Certainly the monasteries did not return _less_ than they
expended in alms. Note, too, the complaint of the St. Alban's men to
Wat Tyler, who are said to have slandered the abbey "de retentione
stipendiorum pauperum." Walsingham, i. 469.] On the contrary, I am
strongly impressed with the belief that six hundred years ago the
poor had no friends. The parsons were needy themselves. In too many
cases one clergyman held two or three livings, took his tithes and
spent them in the town, and left a chaplain with a bare subsistence
to fill his place in the country. There was no parson's wife to drop
in and speak a kind word--no clergyman's daughter to give a friendly
nod, or teach the little ones at Sunday school--no softening
influences, no sympathy, no kindliness. What could you expect of
people with such dreary surroundings?--what but that which we know
actually was the condition of affairs? The records of crime and
outrage in Norfolk six hundred years ago are still preserved, and may
be read by any one who knows how to decipher them.
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